Post 26-The Mormon Hymns Book

John First Wrote on January 7, 2017 

Hey Dana

            Did you miss the snow storm today? Our place at the shore is getting dumped on but here in PA, we're on the northern fringe so it is just a couple of inches.

            While we're waiting for our dinner guests, Carol is at the piano playing hymns, A couple of minutes ago, she was belting out "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder."  Think of it Dana, when God calls the roll, since our names are in the Lamb's Book of Life, we'll be there!

            Now she's playing "Saved By Grace," by Frances Jane van Alstyne. (I'll bet I fooled you on that one. It's Fanny Crosby.)  It's been so long since I’ve heard this played in church, I didn't recognize it, but then she read the words,

   But, oh, the joy when I shall wake, within the palace of the King! 

     Refrain::  And I shall see Him face to face, and tell the story—Saved by grace.

            How could someone blind like her write over 8000 hymns and gospel songs! Even with God's help, how is that possible?

            "More About Jesus" is now ringing throughout the house. In the third verse, Eliza E. Hewitt wrote: More about Jesus, in His Word, Holding communion with my Lord; Hearing His voice in every line, Making each faithful saying mine.

            I’m being convicted by the hymn she’s now playing. I can’t think of the last time I spent a personal hour in prayer. What conviction might fall on the Church if, as we are able (the convenient Christian copout)  spent a daily “Sweet Hour of Prayer.”  I am certainly not asking for God to blind me, but here is another hymn, this time by a blind preacher, William W. Walford, From 1845 when this hymn first appeared in print, until five or ten years ago when it was removed from song leaders’ playbooks, it has inspired and encouraged and challenged Christians to turn to Him. I will confess, this blog is convicting me. What would happen if I started spending a sweet hour in prayer????? Could I even do it anymore?

            Then she said, “Did you know that some of the hymns came from the Mormon Hymns book?

            Why am I writing about hymns, and why is the subject line "The Mormon Hymns Book"? Last night pushed me over the edge. The seeds of this post have been germinating for several years.  We were at a Bible study and when the song leader passed out the music for the evening, there was a hymn on it. It was "Take My Life." Both Carol and I looked excitedly at each other. A hymn, we couldn't believe it. Then when he got to it, he said, "I hope no one minds but I've Chris Tominized it." Who the heck is Chris Tomlin, and if he wanted a Chris Tomlin song, why not play one! Why bastardize a good hymn and try and turn it into a contemporary Christian mushym (hymn and music combination)?!

            Several months ago, when the new East Coast Mormon Tabernacle was opening in Philadelphia and they were giving tours. A work associate of Carol's gave us tickets to go.( I missed the opening of the Washington, D.C. Tabernacle back in the 1970s so I didn't want to miss this one.)  On one side of the street they have a meeting house, the inside of which looks like many of the churches you and I would be familiar with, while the greyish stone Tabernacle is across the street. The tour guides, well dressed and polite Mormon volunteers, gathered the visitors in the meeting house and began the tours from there. While we were waiting, we noticed something different from what we usually see in church. Hymnals. Carol and I both picked up a hymnal out of the rack in front of us and began to read it. Quite honestly, we were shocked. Why?

            First, the Mormon meeting house actually had hymn books. I don't know about your church, but of the last 7 or 8 churches that we've attended up here, and in the three that we currently, regularly attend, there are no hymn books. It's all off the wall. I will gladly date myself on this subject, but when I got saved back in 1977, choruses were only then trying to break into church music. If our pastor allowed any, it was three or four or five hymns, and a chorus. The hymn books were used for the hymns, and usually the chorus was up on the wall.

            Got to run. More later.

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Dana Wrote on Thurs, Feb 16, 2017 at 9:37 AM

Hey John

     Ah, hymns!  Now here’s a chance for an old geezer to give all those potential old geezers of tomorrow a piece of my mind about the awful state of their non-hymn musical tastes.  Wait a minute, Dana, didn’t we cover this a while back, with your comparing yourself to your parent’s generation and their disdain for your generation’s music?  Well it’s got to be more than that, doesn’t it?  No dead horse beating allowed here!

     But there, no doubt, is a real disconnect between more traditional congregations who love the “Great Old Hymns of the Church,” and the young people and their contemporary worship choruses.  And let’s face it, if today’s young Christian worshippers live to be old Christian worshippers like us, then they had better watch out, because one truly does reap what one sews, and what on earth will the young worshippers of that day and time be singing and playing, with which they find they will have to deal?  I’m kind of glad I’ll probably be in glory listening to angels sing by that time.

     Perhaps the disconnect has to do with theology.  No bones about it, I’m a theology guy. It is of great enjoyment to me, as well as bracing to my faith to read dusty old theology books, written by Godly and scholarly saints of days and years gone by.  Reading John Calvin is to me the theological equivalent of climbing into the ring with Mike Tyson.  There’s no doubt that by the end of the session, I’m going to be knocked flat. Calvin gets a bad rap among Evangelicals.  He is only known (and vilified) by most modern Christians for his writings on pre-destination, which is a pity, because his most prolific writings are on justification by faith, and prayer. And, not to be a prejudicial old fuddy-duddy, I find that as I grow in years, there are a growing number of sharp, younger scholars who are writing some great new theology books as well.  But as long as it is sound, I like it all.

     That said, the reason I so appreciate some of the older hymns is that they are loaded with good theology, and the singing of, or the reflecting upon those songs serve to further underpin my own faith and beliefs. The words of Isaac Watts, Augustus Toplady, Charles Wesley and the likes have been so helpful to me throughout the years, and God has used them to minister to my heart and mind on myriad occasions.  Case in point, once when I was going through a very dark and troubling time, it was really getting to me and I began to feel quite down.  On my way to work, I stopped by a gas station to refuel.  Over the speakers a song began to play. Of all things, it was Kathrina von Schlegel’s “Be Still, My Soul.”  It was tremendously comforting and encouraging, and as the words resonated out of those tinny, cheap speakers, the fog just lifted.    

     While not aiming to be too critical of the more modern worship choruses, I do find that the theological leanings in many of them are on the light side, in favor of what I would consider more of an emotional leaning.  That’s not to say that the modern choruses don’t have any place in Christian worship, and I’m sure that those who love them receive blessings while singing them corporately or contemplating them privately.  So I do not want to be perceived as knocking them.  After all does God disdain young people worshipping Him with a lively, bouncy chorus instead of a more somber theological tome? Most likely not. But I do have to admit that a steady diet of them sort of leaves me feeling a bit short of substance.  That’s just me, however.

     Good theology isn’t just missing from today’s music either.  It is sadly disappearing from our churches and our overall Christian world view.  Once I was visiting a church that was about ready to can their pastor, because they accused him of “preaching over their heads.”  Some related that they couldn’t understand a thing he said.  Let’s just say that there wasn’t an overabundance of Christ’s love in the room. 

     One of the members of this “roast,” complained that the pastor constantly “fed them meat,” and never “fed them milk,” and, a diet of all “meat” and no “milk” just wasn’t healthy. (??????) After inquiring (out of turn, as I wasn’t a member) as to how long the ones doing the most complaining had been Christians, I was absolutely astounded to find that the average person in the room had been a practicing Christian for over 40 years!  They very soon fired their pastor. Well, I guess we can’t hang that one on the young folks, can we?

     If the notion expressed above is in any way endemic of the Church today, then is there any wonder that many of the songs of the young tend to be devoid of theology, and more toward “feel good?” We’ve taught them well, by making sure that their diet was entirely from the dairy.  God help us if that’s true.  (see 1 Cor 3:1-3a and Heb 5:1-4;  https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+cor+3%3A1-3&version=NASB  ; https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=heb+5%3A11-14&version=NASB  )

     Along with theology, I enjoy reading the memoirs and biographies of the old circuit riding preachers of a couple of centuries ago and before.  Talk about a tough bunch, these all had “Grit” for a middle name.  One I remember, though which one, I do not remember right off the top of my head, was speaking of the hardships of life on the road (this was before there were paved roads too).  He mentioned how his entire life was carried with him in the two sides of his saddle bags.  One side contained his wardrobe (a change of clothes) and the other his library (which contained his Bible and (in lieu of a systematic theology) a hymnal.  This was early 1800’s or earlier going back into the 1700’s, and even the late 1600’s. 

     If one takes the time to scour old book shops or any of the online used or antique book dealers, there are hymn books of old that can be purchased for a song (pun intended).  The older ones have many old hymns that are no longer even in print, much less sung in our churches today. Some of the hymns do not have a title, only a number. A careful reading of them will present the reader with enough good theology to pass a1st year seminary level theology class.

     Once I remember hearing that in the 1700’s and 1800’s, an average farmer who regularly attended church, knew as much theology as many ministers graduating from seminary today (not including those graduates who majored in theology.)  It was not only accepted, but expected that the preacher would deliver theologically sound messages, and the people would understand them.  One need only read the works of Jonathan Edwards and then compare them to the waste of oxygen that many of our most popular and wealthiest pop-TV preachers take up spewing their almost, if not actual heretical nonsense.

     Have we switched from substance to nothingness, and found it easier to digest?  Have we sent back a perfectly grilled 18 oz. Porterhouse steak, and asked the waitress to bring us a plate of chopped cardboard instead…with a nice glass of “milk” to wash it down?  Do we have the audacity to go on our merry way thinking that God is going to rapture us out of this world so that nothing harmful comes our way, when He didn’t rapture our 1^st century predecessors, who were being fed to lions and set ablaze to light Nero’s garden parties?  If God does rapture the church before the 2^nd coming of Jesus, you can bet your boots it won’t be the one in our generation. 

     And why should He?  Jesus is described by John as being the Word. The living incarnate Word of God. The Word made flesh.  If we only want “milk,” both from our preaching and from our music, is that saying we only want Jesus-lite?  We only want the parts of Jesus that we like?  Gentle Jesus, meek and mild—yes? Jesus the Lord and King, who when He says “Jump!” we say “how high”—no?

     Can we really fuss about the lack of hymns in our worship services?  Maybe we don’t deserve the “Great Old Hymns of the Church,” because we’re guilty of loving not the truth…and, sadly, we’ve gotten just what we’ve paid for.      

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Later On Thursday February 16, 2017 John Added

            Today I was talking with my Evangelical Lutheran minister friend and he said that some of the hymns in the Lutheran hymnal go back to the early church fathers.  Then he went on to tell me about his recent message and how it dealt with the nails that held Jesus to the cross. He felt that it really wasn’t the nails, but love that held Jesus there. Which then caused me to think back to that Sunday morning in the fall of 1977 when I got saved. That led my thinking to an Issac Watts hymn, Alas And Did My Savior Bleed. Watts published that in 1707. In 1885 Ralph Hudson set it to music. The entire hymn follows:

1. Alas, and did my Savior bleed,
And did my Sov'reign die?
Would he devote that sacred head
For sinners such as I?

    At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away,
It was there by faith I received my sight,
And now I am happy all the day!

2. Was it for crimes that I had done
He groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity, grace unknown,
And love beyond degree!

    At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away,
It was there by faith I received my sight,
And now I am happy all the day!

3. Well might the sun in darkness hide,
And shut his glories in,
When Christ the mighty Maker died
For man, the creature's sin.

    At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away,
It was there by faith I received my sight,
And now I am happy all the day!

4. Thus might I hide my blushing face
While Calv'ry's cross appears,
Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
And melt mine eyes to tears.

    At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away,
It was there by faith I received my sight,
And now I am happy all the day!

5. But drops of grief can ne'er repay
The debt of love I owe;
Here, Lord, I give myself away,
'Tis all that I can do.

    At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away,
It was there by faith I received my sight,
And now I am happy all the day!

            I’m taking a lot of space to post the entire hymn. Think of this Dana. In 1707, America was just a bunch of wild British colonies. We weren’t US yet. Late in 1885 the Statue of Liberty was sent from France, in pieces, to later be assembled in New York Harbor. I have no idea who or where my Father’s parents were at that time, or if they were even born yet. But God knew at all those times, that the year and the day would come when the son of Harriet and John would kneel at the altar in the fall of 1977 and because of Jesus going to the cross for my sins over 2000 years ago I would see the light, and the burdens of my heart would be rolled away. Then by faith I would receive true sight to see and know my Saviour bled and died for a sinner such as I. What amazing pity, grace and love beyond degree.

            You just wrote about an old geezer giving future old geezers a piece of your mind. But I would go even farther and mention a recent Pete Brisco radio message where, among other things, he was talking about the young people who are turning away from church. If someone is  still reading this old timer’s philippic, I would even  postulate that young people today have no idea, because they hear “7-11”music in church (7 words repeated 11 times), why they are in church or why God would even want them in church. What light do they see or what burdens of their heart are rolled away? Why should they be happy all day when they’ve got nothing but noisy upbeat fluff to hold on to rather than the substance of a solid hymn?

            Here I will make two concessions One concerns contemporary Christian music (CCM). I was talking today to a local CCM  writer and musician who is on our blog mailing list. While I wasn’t surprised at this young person’s honest and understandable answer (The person doesn’t read it and, I’ll paraphrase the answer, “I don’t even read my relatives’ blogs.”). In what I consider the proper place—your car, your house or apartment, at a party, etc—I’ll concede there is a place for CCM. But not in church. And two, speaking of the church, there are some oasis concerning churches that still recognize the value and importance of hymns, but like oasis in a desert, they seem to be few and far between.

            So back to the Mormon hymnal. You should buy one. I agree with you that the Mormon Church is eating our lunch when it comes to singing hymns and the positive spiritual, theological, and familial reasons for this. In the First Presidency Preface (or introduction) to the hymnal I have (Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 1985 published in Salt Lake City, Utah by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) they write, “Some of the greatest sermons are preached by the singing of hymns.”

            In their hymnal they encourage music in our homes saying, “ Music has boundless powers for moving families toward greater spirituality and devotion to the gospel.” It appears they have borrowed from God’s admonition to the Israelites in Deu 6:6 and 7, “ These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. ⁷ You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. “ when they encourage families to use hymns to do the same with their children.

            And finally,  the LDS leadership, through their hymnal, challenge the individual to see what music can do for them personally, “Hymns can lift our spirits, give us courage, and move us to righteous action.”  The only thing mindlessly repeated choruses and noisy modern church music does for me is it, tragically, causes me to by-pass the “morning worship” time and come in only for the message.

            This is from an email I wrote to you earlier in the year. I couldn’t have said it better myself, “I don't understand the explosion of choruses. Mindlessly repeating the same sentence or two over, and over, and over, and over, ad nauseam. While conversely, when singing a hymn the writer's experiences penetrate to the depth of the  Christian experience and meaning and that ministers to the depth of your soul. The words, often in conjunction with the music, and not repetitious, raucous noise (i.e. music) unlock the deep rooms of your spirit to minister, cleanse, lift, or delight as is needed in your life at the moment.  So it was that the last verse of It Is Well With My Soul stuck me yesterday, for me and for you.”

            Can you believe this? We attended a church a couple of times where the music was so loud, it actually vibrated our internal organs while we in were still the parking lot a long way from the front door. (Then we walked into a blackened auditorium--I can’t call it a sanctuary—where the ushers and usherettes used flash lights and pushed us down a dark corridor to invisible seats.) At another church, the noise was so loud, Carol got a headache long before the message was given and the scenes on the big screen at the front of the church looked like a 1960’s lava lamp that jumped around in accompaniment to the noise of the band. (Whatever happened to peaceful and contemplative scenes of nature, lakes, flowers, sunrises, or crosses on hillsides projected onto the screens?) And at a church near where we live, I’ve heard, they even give out ear plugs to people who want/need them.

            I won’t even get into beat in much of CCM and choruses and how I believe it can have a negative impact on the listeners.

Can you imagine, I used to lead the hymn sing in our neighborhood. On short notice, the usual pianist was going to be away and got a substitute. He was a Bible school, music major graduate (not from VFCC) and he could not read music notes in our hymnal and could only play cords, if they were in his cord books.

            I’ll close with this. A former pastor at the church in which we were married, once tried to excite the congregation during worship by saying, “If Jesus were here now, you’d be jumping up and down with excitement.” Carol’s response then and now, when we think about his comment, was and is, “No, we wouldn’t. We’d be on our faces before Him.”

            We should do as the Mormon hymnal says and “...use the hymns to invite the Spirit of the Lord into our congregations, our homes, and our personal lives.”

            While I know this isn’t the only reason, but is it any wonder that the Church is in the state of decline that it’s in?

Frustrated

John

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PS  A note to song leaders--mix hymns with your selection of other music.